F3 Ask most people what a leader is and they point at a title: a boss, a captain, a man in charge. F3’s field manual for leadership starts somewhere else. A leader, it says, is simply a man who gets people to do something they would not have done on their own. F3 has a name for the effect that has, and it is the first idea in its whole system. It calls it Disruption.
What is disruption in leadership?
When you influence someone to act, you move them off the spot they were content to stay on. That movement disturbs the way things were. Disruption is just that disturbance. You cannot lead without causing some of it, which is why F3 makes it the very first principle a leader learns. If that is what leadership really is, it is worth being just as clear about what it is not.
Is being a leader about having a title?
No. Leadership is not a rank or a position. It is not management. It is not charisma or a big personality. A quiet man with no standing can lead, and a loud man with every advantage can fail to. The one thing leadership always does is move people. But simply moving people is not enough; where a leader moves them decides whether they keep following.
What makes a leader worth following?
F3 draws a hard line between two kinds of leaders. One commands and manages, and is soon forgotten. The other loves his people, his purpose, and his community, and is followed long after he is gone. Real leadership moves people toward something better for them, not for the leader. The old proverb behind it is Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Sharpening is friction, a disturbance on purpose, and it makes both men better. So the real question is not whether leaders are a special breed, but whether any man can choose to become one.
Can any man become a leader?
Yes, but it is a decision. No one assigns it to you and no one can make it for you. You choose to influence, and in choosing you accept the disturbance that comes with it. That is where leadership begins for any man: with the choice to move, and to move others.
Questions to sit with
F3 closes its teaching on Disruption with a set of questions for a man to ask himself. Sit with these:
- Do I understand the way things currently are in my life, and am I steadily disrupting it to move toward something better?
- Am I disrupting in order to move others toward something better, and not just myself?
- Do I know where I am going? Can I put that into words for other people and move them toward it?
- Do I truly love the people I lead, and treat their needs as greater than my own?
- Is my focus always on the people I am leading?
F3 calls this Disruption, the first principle in the F3 Nation Q-Source, the field manual for virtuous leadership that F3 is built on. Read the full teaching: f3nation.com/disruption. F3 Denver is where men practice it. Find a workout.